Guys, The IEEE Information for Authors (the IEEE standard referred to below) can be found on the web at http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/transactions/auinfo97.pdf. You will see that it supports capitalizing units based on proper names and uses "m" for milli and M for "mega," etc. This is the standard for IEEE publications and I see it as the standard to use (unless you have some special unit or symbol). Jim Jim Knighten, Ph.D. Teradata, a Division of NCR http://www.ncr.com 17095 Via Del Campo San Diego, CA 92127 USA Tel: 858-485-2537 Fax: 858-485-3788 jim.knighten@xxxxxxx -----Original Message----- From: Ingraham, Andrew [mailto:Andrew.Ingraham@xxxxxx] Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 2:01 PM To: si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [SI-LIST] Re: Language conventions > I seem to remember from my college text books that it mattered if you > were > talking about AC or DC voltages/currents/etc. Capitalized letters > meant > you were talking about DC values and non-capitalized letters meant AC > values. I remember something similar too ... except that this applied to the variables v(t), i(t), V, I, etc. ... but not the units. I believe that organizations such as the IEEE have published standards for things like this. But I do not have a copy. Personally, I'm fairly flexible, except for a few units. Specifically, I believe that a lower-case "s" is correct for seconds, whereas upper-case "S" means Siemens (inverse of Ohms). Engineers frequently make that mistake, by writing that some delay is so-many "nS", or nano-Siemens. Also, I prefer using "m" for milli and "M" for mega. I think that might be official. Again, people often write things like 50mHz (which would be a very low frequency), meaning megahertz (or should I say MegaHertz?). I have also heard that it's correct to use upper-case for units that are based on someone's proper name, and lower-case otherwise. That doesn't work for "voltage" or "amperage" (which IS stretching things a bit), nor for the milli/Mega distinction, but does seem to work for many others. In junior high school, a teacher once said to use lower-case for the Latin prefixes (milli, centi), and upper-case for the Greek(?) prefixes (Kilo, Mega) ... just because the former prefixes make things smaller and the latter make them larger. Along similar lines ... should you use a space between a number and the unit that comes after it? Is it "5V" or "5 V"? Or "5-V", like the "2-Watt" example you gave? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu